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Monday, April 16, 2012

generosity

One of the elements in the Human Resilience Code, a platform we at LifeXchange use to bring about positive change within an individual, is Generosity.


Too often we limit our understanding of generosity to; give ‘muchly’ ‘easily’ and give money. So I looked to see what synonyms Microsoft Word gave me, and this is what Bill Gates’ guru’s decided on:

“Generosity: kindness, big-heartedness, open-handedness, liberality, bounty, munificence (say what?), charity.”


A very different picture! Charity being only one on the list and somehow I love that “kindness” is the top of the list! Kindness is free and readily available! It is something we can all offer!


Last week two of the LifeXchange guys and me tagged along with Peter Solomon, a chiropractor who used his professional network to collect Easter eggs for the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. We went and handed out the eggs to the very many little kids who were in hospital over Easter. It was a small gesture that reaped great reward. Too often we label generosity for the rich, for the well-off, yet here Keanan and Lucian were, only a few cents jingling in their own pockets, putting an enormous smile and a very definite twinkle in the eyes of these precious little people! When we got in the car, their first words were, “I feel good inside. I did something good today”. Simple words attempting to explain a complex emotion! From their backgrounds, a code of selfish survival is their standard, so to do something for the complete benefit of another is a foreign concept. And I don’t believe it was the fact that they gave Easter eggs - they didn’t buy the eggs, they didn’t even collect them, all they did was hand them out. So what was it that gave them that ‘warm fuzzy feeling’? The simple act of kindness.


Generosity – “My life has purpose, I can make a difference!”